1809.] 
af 275 | 
MEMOIRS AND REMAINS OF EMINENT PERSONS. 
ACCOUNT of HENRY BRIGGS, the MATITE- 
MATICIAN, compiled from PROFESSOR 
warpb’s LIvES of the PROFESSORS of 
GRESHAM COLLEGE, and other authentic 
SOURCKS. ) . 
ENRY Briggs was born at Warley 
Gl Wood, a small hamlet in the 
parish of Halie, in Yorkshire; the 
time of his birth is uncertain. Dr, 
Smith places it about the year 1560,* 
which, [ presume, he might collect from 
what 1s said by Mr. Wood, that he died 
on the 26th of January, 1630, aged 70, 
or more :t and likewise by Mr. Gilli- 
brand, who, speaking of his death, calls 
him, Apellem nostrum septuagenarium.t 
But, in a letter from Mr. Joseph Mede, 
of Christ’s College, in Cambridge, dated 
the 6th February, 1680, it 1s’ said, 
“Mr. Henry Brigges, of Oxford, the 
great } Mathematician, is lately dead ; 74 
years of age.§” 
According to this account, which’ is 
more express and determinate than either 
of the former, he must have been born 
in the year 1556. After his education 
at a Grammar school in the country, he 
was sent to St. Jolin’s College, at Cam- 
bridge, about the year 1577, and ad- 
mitted a scholar of the house, about the 
5th of November, 1579. In the year 
$581, he took the degree of Bachelor of _ 
Arts; that of Master, in 1585, and was 
ehosen a Fellow of the College, on the 
29th of March, 1588. His chief study 
was the mathematics, in which he excell. 
ed; and, in the year 1592, was made 
examiner and lecturer in that faculty, 
and soon after reader of-the physic-lec- 
ture founded by Dr. Linacey. 
Upon the settlement of Gresham Col- 
Jeve, he was chosen first professor of 
geometry there, about the beginning of 
March, in the ‘year 1596. And some 
tine after he made a table, by the help 
of which’ the magneticzl declination be- 
ing given, the height of the pole may be 
easily found. .This table was united to 
an instrument, described in Dr. Gilbert’s 
5th book Of the Loudstone, and published 
by Mr. Blondeville, in 1602. In the 
year 1609, he contracted an acquaint-. 
ance with the learned Mr. James Usher, 
_afterwards Archbishop of Armagh, which 
* Vit. Hen. Briggii, p. 1. 
+ Athen. Ouon. v. 1.¢. 550. Hist, ef Ant, 
@x. 1. ii. p. 44. 
t Pref. ad Trigon. Brit. 
§ Ms. My. Baker. 
continued many years, by letters, twe 
of which are yet extant. Jn the former 
of them, which is dated in August, 1610, 
he tells him, among other things, “ That 
he was engased in the subject of eclipses.” 
But in the latter, dated the 16th of March, 
1615, he acquaints Inm with his being 
wholly taken up, and eniployed, about 
the noble invention of logarithms, thea 
lately discovered ;* in which be had af 
terwards so great a concern, that it will 
be necessary to give a more particular ace 
count of it, Mr. Wood tells-us, that 
“one Dr. Craig, a Scotchman, coming 
out of Denmark into his own country, 
called upon John Neper, Baron of Mar- 
chestoni, near Edinburgh, and told him, 
among other discourses, of a new in- 
vention in Denmark, by Longomontanus, 
as’tis said to Save the tedious multipii- 
cation and division in astronomical cal- 
culations.” Neper being solicitous’ to 
know farther of him concerning this mat- 
ter, he could give no other account of it, 
than that it was by proportionable num-~ 
bers; which hint Neper taking, he des 
sired him, at his return, to call upon bim 3 
again, Craig, after some weeks had 
passed, did so; and Neper then ‘shewed 
ae a rude draught of what he calied 
“ Canon Mirabilis Logarithmorum,” which — 
draught, with some alterations, he print- 
ed in 1614. Tt es afterwards into 
the hands of our author, Briggs, and into 
those of William ‘Oughtred, frem whony 
the relation of this matter came.} 
As this story. is told, one would ima- 
gitie it came from Mr. Oughtred; but 
there is ne mention of it in his writings. 
And it seems strange, that Longomon- 
tanus, had he any pretensions to it, 
should have no where laid claim to the 
honeur of this admirabie invention, t but 
left the glory ef its first discovery to be 
fully ascribed to the Baron of Marches- 
ton, 
This could not be for want of atten- 
tion toa thing of chat importance, oF 
an opportunity of doing himself justice 
in so long a course of time ; for he lived, 
as Vossius tells, to the year 1647, and 
was upwards of 80 years old, when he 
died .{} 
A ROTTS, 
* Usher's Letters, p. 19-35. 
fT Athena. Ox. y. 1. c. 549. 
{ Vid. Smith in Vit. H. B. pi 5. 
§ See Mac Kenzie’s Lives of the Scots" 
. Writers; p. 592, 
fl De Nat ura Artium. Lib, iil, 3. 46. ‘pe 150. 
_Gassenda 
